The public prosecutor’s office in the Sicilian city of Catania claimed crew members on the MSF-operated Aquarius migrant rescue ship, and its sister ship VOS Prudence, had illegally dumped potentially dangerous waste among ordinary rubbish between January 2017 and May 2018.

It alleged that 24,000 kilograms of suspect waste, including potentially hazardous medical matter, was handed over to local authorities at 11 Italian ports on 44 occasions, avoiding costly safe disposal procedures.

Dangerous material included migrants’ clothes, food and “infectious sanitary waste”, it added.

Prosecutors argued the ship operators knew the migrants’ clothes could transmit viruses contracted during their journeys, adding that cases of scabies, HIV, meningitis and respiratory infections had been found amongst the migrants.

By failing to declare possibly dangerous materials, the ships’ operators avoided around €460,000 of waste disposal costs, prosecutors said.

They ordered that this sum be immediately frozen in the charities’ accounts.

Around 14 people, including two Italian shipping agents and the Russian captain of the Aquarius, have been placed under investigation in the case.

Magistrates ordered the Aquarius to be impounded but MFS denied any wrongdoing and accused Italy of trying to criminalise humanitarian search and rescue missions.

“After two years of defamatory and unfounded allegations of collusion with human traffickers, judicial investigations, and bureaucratic obstacles against our humanitarian work, we are now accused of organised crime aimed at illicit waste trafficking,” Karline Kleijer, MSF’s head of emergencies, said.

The NGO declared the in-port operations, including waste management, of its search-and-rescue vessels have always followed standard procedures.

The Aquarius has been blocked at the French port of Marseilles since September, after failing to find a country willing to register its trips to the southern Mediterranean.

It has been unable to dock in Italy since the Italian government imposed a crackdown against Mediterranean rescue ships since taking office in June, denying them access to local ports following the arrival of almost 650,000 people from North Africa since 2014.

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has spearheaded the anti-migrant crackdown, welcomed the move by Catania magistrates.

“I did well to block the NGO ships,” he said.

“I stopped not only the traffic of illegal immigrants but, from what it seems, also that of toxic waste.”